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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22818886">in burning red</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/persikovaya/pseuds/persikovaya'>persikovaya</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Captain America (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Canon Compliant, Don't copy to another site, Drabble, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-20</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-04-28 11:55:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>593</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22818886</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/persikovaya/pseuds/persikovaya</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>the color of war, love, violence.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>James "Bucky" Barnes/Steve Rogers</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>6</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>in burning red</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>this is kind of a writing exercise, something i wrote to get my mind off things.<br/>please feel free to point out mistakes, if there's any.</p><p>title is from "red" by taylor swift, but is originally inspired (the title, not the story itself) by this edit https://girlmadeof-stars.tumblr.com/post/190832938969</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>their story starts, and it starts with violence.</p><p>with blood.</p><p>red, thick and sharp on this kid’s cheekbones, on his split lip, dripping and hitting the concrete. the white breaks the red, his teeth, he breathes with his mouth open. he sounds like he’s hyperventilating. bucky stalls. he’s honestly not quite sure what he can do aside for what he has done already.</p><p>he asks, "will you be okay? are you okay?"</p><p>that’s a stupid question.</p><p>the kid answers him nonetheless.</p><p>or rather, tries to.</p><p>"...had ‘em. i had them." his lips form an "o", more blood drips down his chin but he still finishes. "i had them on the ropes."</p><p>"i can tell. what’s your name? where do you live?"</p><p>bucky thinks he’ll kill him for wanting to walk him home, but the kid—</p><p>"steve. nearby. and i can get there on my—"</p><p>"on your own, i know. still, i want to take a walk."</p><p>—steve nods and accepts. he walks him home and helps him clean the blood, get it out of his hair and his clothes. they become friends ever since.</p><p> </p><p>/</p><p> </p><p>steve feels centuries old, old as rome and with just as much blood on his hands. his heart feels like a fruit left to dry in the sun, what’s beating inside it feels like red turned black, blood turned ink.</p><p>(or maybe, it was left there to rot.)</p><p>there’s a splash of red on his arm, his arm—made of metal, strong, menacing, cruel—is dripping with violence and red and death at its edges. steve can’t see that last part but he feels it.</p><p>he feels himself unraveling and he doesn’t know why.</p><p>this... person is no one to him. a ghost, so hard to catch, hostile, fleeting and ever-so-present.</p><p>he’s just as dead and black as steve.</p><p>he doesn’t know him. he can not know him. he knows him.</p><p>his mask drops on the concrete with a dull, lifeless sound, he looks at steve just as lifelessly and raw, haunted.</p><p>steve feels like winter soldier is haunted by him when he calls him by the name of his friend, his lover, his love, long dead, buried in an empty grave, not mourned—haunted just as he himself is haunted.</p><p>he doesn’t know him. he can’t not know him.</p><p>he’s red with violent confusion, with need to remember what’s may not even be there anymore.</p><p>still, steve’s heart is finally pulsing with red, alive and hurting sharply.</p><p> </p><p>/</p><p> </p><p>his face is framed with red, the red is hidden deep inside his mouth, between his teeth, his lips are red.</p><p>"your mom’s name was sarah," he says. "you used to wear newspapers in your shoes."</p><p>he knows him. he knows him so well. like you would always know the throbbing of your own blood in your veins, like steve feels and knows his, pressing an open palm to bucky's chest.</p><p>the heartbeat stills for a moment, flutters and starts again, faster and feverish, almost an illness. it's not, even though it, like some illnesses go, is forever.</p><p>he knows steve so well, better than anyone ever did, better than anyone ever will. it hurts like a wound reopened, and that's how he know it is him, because bucky always felt both like living and dying to him.</p><p>he holds him, he loves him, he mourns him, he takes him and hides him from the rest of the world for an hour—everyone's selfish sometimes—until the flurry of colors slows to a halt and the only one left is red.</p>
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